How to Add and Arrange Stages

Sarah Paterson

September 26, 2017 11:19

Updated

Whether you are just starting to build your Workflow or wish to expand on it, you may wish to add a new stage. This article will walk through how to add a stage to your site, as well as how to organize them in your workflow.

A stage within FluidReview is the frame in which tasks, triggers and applications reside in. Stages provide a structure to allow a set flow to occur for your applications and other users as they complete tasks and submit results.

Stages are defined by what type of tasks have been placed into them such as a Reviewer stage would have ranking tasks that are available to a particular reviewer group. A stage can have any number of different tasks from the different groups you have within the site. For example, you can have Applicant and Recommender tasks residing within one stage while in following stages, you may have reviewer and applicant tasks waiting to be completed once the application has been moved forward.

The stage a user is in determines which tasks they can work on. From an applicant or reviewer point-of-view, stages are sequential, but because users can move through your stages at different speeds, you can have users in all stages at the same time (especially if your site has no stage deadlines). From an admin point of view stages can be simultaneous.

How to Create a Stage

In order to create a stage in your site:

Go to Edit your site

Go to Workflow Designer

Click + Add a stage in the upper right corner of the page.

Enter a name for your stage.

Optional: Enter a Description of the stage for each group.NOTE:This description will only appear if that group has a task within that stage.

Optional: Set a deadline for the Stage. You can now add the deadline by clicking the Options tab and selecting Set a Deadline. Once a stage deadline has passed, users in that stage will no longer be able to work on their tasks.

Optional: Enable "Unsubmit upon entering this stage" to ensure that applications will always have an unsubmitted status when in this stage. TIP!Use this if you have multiple applications stages with multiple submit tasks.

Click Save Stage to create the stage.

How to Rearrange Stages

In order to Rearrange Stages in your site:

Go to Edit your site

Go to Workflow Designer

Select the Double Arrow icon beside the stage to move the stage to another location in the workflow.

Why is it Useful?

Two main reasons you may wish to rearrange your stages:

You are in the middle of building your program and a stage was added out of place

Your Workflow has changed since initial setup in the previous cycle and you need to change it

WARNING! Once your program is live and accepting applications, you should never move a stage as it can break your site’s logic including automations and produce confusing experiences for your users.